Reduce likeliness of surgery with chiropractic care

(NewsUSA) - Who wouldn't want to avoid back surgery if there was a real alternative?

Countless back pain sufferers could finally do just that as evidence continues to mount supporting the growing movement toward chiropractic care as the "first option" for relief over costly and invasive procedures like spinal surgery. One job-related statistic alone says it all regarding how big a deal that represents: Back pain injuries outnumber all other occupational injuries in the U.S.

To that point, the latest study to show that seeing a doctor of chiropractic first reduced the odds of having to undergo surgery was conducted by a collaboration of prestigious institutions that included Dartmouth College's Geisel School of Medicine and the University of Washington School of Public Health. Their published results ("Early Predictors of Lumbar Spine Surgery After Occupational Back Injury: Results from a Prospective Study of Workers in Washington State") found that while close to half -- or 42.7 percent -- of that state's workers who visited a surgeon wound up going under the knife, only a scant 1.5 percent of those who consulted a chiropractor first shared the same extreme fate. The outcomes reflect conditions of similar severity.

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Prior studies have also focused on chiropractic patients' consistently better health outcomes, less use of opioid medications, and considerably lower medical expenses.

"As more data continues to surface, I expect that patients and practitioners will move toward considering chiropractic care first, medicine second, and surgery last," said the not-for-profit Foundation for Chiropractic Progress' Gerard Clum, D.C., in noting that health providers like the University of Pittsburgh have already adopted just such an approach.

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